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The 18th-ranked North Carolina men's tennis team opens the 2013 dual match season Saturday with a doubleheader at Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center against Wofford and Gardner-Webb.

UNC Associate Athletic Communications Director Dave Lohse sat down Wednesday with Tar Heel head coach Sam Paul as Carolina prepares for the openers on Saturday. UNC will meet Wofford at 10 a.m. and Gardner-Webb at 5 p.m. as Coach Paul begins his 20th year at the helm of the Tar Heel ship.

UNC
Athletic Communications: What is it that
makes this team special relative to teams in the past?

Head Coach
Sam Paul: One,
they've great job academically. That
relates to discipline and hard work.
That's the fundamental basis of being a good team. This has been a fun group to be around. I know that Tripp and I have enjoyed coaching
this team. Certainly, we've had a lot of
personnel turnover since last year but our veterans have been focused and it's
always exciting to help new kids in your program improve and mature as both
tennis players and student-athletes.

Certainly, we will have our challenges.
This will be a very demanding schedule that our kids will face. But in the long run, I think playing a good
non-conference schedule always helps us.
While we may not have as many players as we'd like with significant
collegiate experience, I still think we have a chance to be successful. A lot will depend on the chemistry we develop
over the next couple of months and staying healthy. I know our guys are ready for those
challenges.

UNC
Athletic Communications: What are the
strengths of some of this year's newcomers?

Head Coach
Sam Paul: Brett
Clark had a very good fall as freshman and goes into the spring season ranked
in the Top 60. He's got an all-around
game. He's played well in singles and
doubles. He's an all-court player. Maik Ulrich's arrival this spring gives us a
strong left-handed presence on the team.
It's always good to have a lefty.
He's our first since Taylor Fogleman.
He's a solid baseliner and will present challenges for our
opponents. Nelson Vick had a great
fall. Nelson is a great competitor and a
hard worker. He's got an all-court
game. He's a workhorse, a true
warrior. Stuart DePaolo has a powerful
groundstroke game. He's a bulldog, a
tenacious competitor.

UNC
Athletic Communications: What is it
about this school and this program that's so unique?

Head Coach
Sam Paul: Honestly,
this school sells itself. North Carolina is such a great school academically
that I think that's the first draw for recruits. If you look at our facilities,
we've done really well with our facilities and we have great academic support.

Obviously, we have Tripp Phillips as our assistant coach and that is a
major plus for our program. Tripp is a former player here who had a lot of
success on the professional tour and is one of the best coaches in the country
and I include both head coaches and assistant coaches in that group.

I would say the UNC tennis program offers the entire package: our
facilities, our academics, our staff, the kind of schedule we play and
everything else that helps a player prove himself as the best player he can
possibly be - all those things can be found here in Chapel Hill. I think that's been true for decades and I
think it continues to be true.

UNC
Athletic Communications: How does your
pro coaching experience and working with players who have gone on to have
successful pro careers made you a better college coach?

Head Coach
Sam Paul: I was very
fortunate to be here when Don Johnson was training for 13 years and got to go
to pro tournaments with him on a regular basis. That was a great educational
experience for me as a head coach. To translate that back to the current
players, I'm trying to get those players to reach that level. I am trying to get our current to understand
they achieve at that level.

The more that you're seeing that level consistently, how hard they train,
the top training techniques in the world, and you're constantly learning-it's just
an invaluable teaching tool. Don came back after he graduated and decided he
was going to go pro. He didn't have a great junior year in college when he
changed from a two-handed to one-handed backhand and had about a .500 record
playing No. 1 singles. Two years later, however, he's playing in the U.S. Open.

I watched his entire maturation in the pros from being happy to be in
the U.S. Open to being seeded and having the expectation to win it. It's the same
thing with Tripp Phillips. When he
started out, he was nervous about being in the U.S. Open and then all of a
sudden he's playing semifinal matches in Arthur Ashe Stadium. That's a big deal. I saw all of that, and
that education-the pressure, the training, and the mental game-helped develop
my coaching skills and philosophy.

Nick Monroe came to North Carolina in 2000 and honestly, at that point,
he had limited junior tennis resume. But
he knew Carolina was the place for him and through hard work and mental
toughness he developed into an All-America and a Patterson Medal winner. Nick continued to train in Chapel Hill after
he graduated and now, several years later, he's developed a game that has led
to him being one of the top-ranked doubles players in the world.

When you look at the college careers of Johnson, Phillips and Monroe,
you might not have suspected they would turn into the pro players they
did. But all three had a common will to
win at the highest level. It's exciting
that I've now been privileged to coach players competing in Grand Slam events
in three different decades.

UNC
Athletic Communications: Players consistently
describe you as competitive and passionate.
How do those characteristics make you a more effective coach?

Head Coach
Sam Paul: Well I
think you've got to study the game, and study it every day. Why do I have a big
screen TV here in my office? It's not just for my office but to help the
players study their games, give them a convenient place to study video. I love
the game of tennis, and I want to give them everything we possibly can while
they're here. It's not always an easy sport to coach, so you're always looking
for ways to make a bigger impact for your players. That's what has kept me in
the sport-I've been coaching for 30 years now. I love helping our student-athletes
and our players be the best possible people they can be.

UNC
Athletic Communications: If the tennis
coaching days at Carolina ever come to an end, what would you desire your
legacy to be?

Head Coach
Sam Paul: What I
would say first is that the players and student-athletes had a great experience
while they were here and wanted to come back and continue to be a part of the
program. We've had lots of players go on to lead very successful lives, the
majority of them not in tennis, but they always feel like they're part of the
program. For example, I look at the
eight seniors in the Class of 2008. They
went to two Final 16s as players. Seven
of those players graduated from Carolina with 3.0 grade point averages or
better. As of today, all eight of them have
a master's degree, are getting a master's degree or are in law school. When you look at those statistics, how much
prouder could I be as a head coach? That
group epitomizes what Carolina athletics is.

For example, 40 of my former players came to my wedding a few years ago,
and I have a tremendous amount of pride that they always want to be a part of
the program and come back. I think we can learn life lessons through our tennis
program-how to be competitive, how to get knocked down and get back up, how to
deal with adversity, how to be the best you can be, how you can have your own
goals and then work and strive to reach those goals. All of those things are
what I would say can have a real impact on people's lives. Those examples would be a great gift to me as
my coaching legacy here.